It looks that Indian armed forces have finally found a replacement for the Bofors gun. India's largest and most diverse research organisation – Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) has recently developed an indigenous ATAGS (Advanced Towed Artillery Gun System), which has proved itself as one of the highly destructive weapons.

The
155-mm 52-calibre gun has also made a world record as it fired three
shells out to a range of 47.2 kilometres during its field trials held
at the Pokhran range. During tests, the gun fired a long range 'High
explosive – base bleed' round. Most
of the 155-mm guns in the world can fire upto 45 kms, so
ATAGS has set a new world record.

In
Focus

Various
units of India's artillery regiment will soon be equipped with
2,000 units of these guns.

India's
first high capacity and long range Artillery Gun has been developed
by DRDO in collaboration with – Tata Power SED (Strategic
Engineering Division) and Bharat Forge.

"Bharat
Forge has developed and delivered the full ordinance for the Tata SED
Gun…The ATGAS will be a joint project of two private-sector
corporations," official sources said.

According
to media sources, the secret for the longer range of the ATAGS is the
larger volume of chamber – 25 litres, that packs in more high
explosive propellant. While other similar guns have a chamber of
about 23-litre capacity.